Pahlish Train Underwater

Train Underwater was among the first polishes released by indie polish maker Pahlish back in 2012 when Shannon first opened up shop on etsy. I spent many an hour studying those early Pahlish offerings, filling my cart and emptying it again and again, and Train Underwater was one I always seemed on the cusp of purchasing but never did. Nowadays you must look to Pahlish stockists like LacquerChic and Llarowe if you wish to find Shannon's older offerings as she stocks only her newest creations in her big cartel store. After a recent Pahlish restock on Llarowe, I found myself unable to resist two old favorites and this is one of them.

Train Underwater is a jelly glitter bomb. It has a deep sapphire blue jelly base packed full of small metallic hex glitters in teal green, purple, fuchsia and red, some of them holographic. It is very dark and sparkly on the nail, with the glitters sending out sparks of color as the light hits them just right. 

I debated whether to layer this over another polish but only blue cremes came to mind and I was sure I'd lose some of that semi-translucent jelly depth if I layered over one of them. A quick session with a swatch palette assured me that this polish did indeed have the capacity to be wearably opaque on its own, so I went for it. The consistency was eminently paintable for a jelly glitter: fluid and smooth with no trace of stickiness. Glitter payoff was excellent with an abundance of glitters per brushful easily distributing themselves randomly across the nail. Two medium coats were all I needed for a coverage that I was happy with. In the sun if I looked closely I could see areas of greater translucence where my coverage was a bit uneven and my sidewall edges and cuticle curves are kind of wobbly but overall I'm really happy with how this manicure turned out. Cleanup was mostly a matter of dealing with rogue glitters and while I wasn't entirely successful at removing all of them, most did come off. I had no staining issues at cleanup, but if that's not the case when I remove this polish I add a postscript. 

Train Underwater dries naturally in very good time to a flat, slightly textured finish. Aiming for a "Mop 'n' Glow" shine, as my friend Melissa of Lacquer Reverie enjoys calling it, I broke out my bottle of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food for a smoothing layer before the final topcoat. Interestingly, Glitter Food dries naturally to a matte-like satin finish so you get to see what the polish looks like matted. Train Underwater is very nice that way, but I neglected to take any pics -- my bad!

Photos show two coats of Train Underwater over treatment and basecoat with a layer of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food followed by a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Pahlish Train Underwater

Train Underwater is classic old school Pahlish, even though it's been reformulated at least once that I know of. It's interesting to compare polishes like this one to some of her newer shimmers like Mad Man with a Box or her latest collection from this fall -- you can see Shannon fine tuning her creative vision. I love her shimmers, but there will always be a place in my collection for older Pahlish lacquers like Train Underwater, which must be one of Shannon's best known, most purchased polishes.

If you'd like to see photos of a really excellent manicure with this polish, check out this post by Steffels. She really has the touch!

love,
Liz